Waging of Welfare: All Work and No Pay?

In Joslin, Illinois, welfare recipients come from Modesto, California at the expense of a meat packing company, which hires them to fill jobs that once belonged to unionized local workers earning over twice the pay. While the company, which has paid millions in fines for workplace safety violations and an injury suit settlement, claims it hires welfare recipients out of a sense of civic duty, a spokesman for a local union claims the industry has been looking for a compliant low-wage workforce that has limited ability to exercise their rights under law.\u2

The Worst of All Possible Worlds: Michigan\u27s Juvenile Justice System and International Standards for the Treatment of Children

Throughout the ages, the question of how society deals with law-breaking and other problematic behavior by persons considered to be children has been a vexing one. However, a closer look at the question reveals that in this country, and in Michigan in particular, we are in the anomalous situation of treating children with a combination of more severe punishment and less due process than at any other time in the history of our laws. This situation is particularly troubling because in most of the rest of the world, both developed and undeveloped, efforts are being made to advance the rights and protection of children through international agreements like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ( the Convention )

INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF MENTAL SUFFERING: A NEW TORT

It is time to recognize that the courts have created a new tort. It appears, in one disguise or another, in more than a hundred decisions, the greater number of them within the last two decades. Of course there is no necessity whatever that there should be separate torts, or that a tort must have a name; but if a name must be found for this one, we might do worse than to borrow a word from the vernacular of Kentucky and points south, and call it orneriness. It is something very like assault. It consists of the intentional, outrageous infliction of mental suffering in an extreme form

Driving Diverse Representation of Diverse Classes

Why have federal courts overwhelmingly appointed white men to represent diverse consumer classes? Rule 23(g) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires courts to appoint the attorneys “best able to represent the interests of class members” to serve as class counsel. But courts’ recurrent conclusion that white men best fit the federally mandated job description not only gives the appearance of discrimination, but harms class members that suffer from outcomes plagued by groupthink and cognitive biases. This Article sets out to uncover why white male repeat players continue to dominate class counsel appointments and proposes a practical and immediately implementable solution for the judiciary to improve class counsel diversity. The Article examines all class action auto defect multidistrict litigation suits. By focusing on this subset of cases that span across five decades, it observes potential tendencies of certain courts (i.e., white, Republican-appointed, and female courts) to appoint white men and identifies different processes and criteria courts have implemented and considered that have resulted in the appointment of more female and minority attorneys. The Article finds, however, that the gender and racial gaps remain stark, largely because courts understandably place an almost dispositive value on attorneys’ prior experience serving as class counsel, a role white men have traditionally monopolized. It proposes a way to resolve this Catch-22 problem—a two-tier joint appointment structure that collectively evaluates the experience and diversity of counsel and removes the insurmountable entry barriers to the plaintiffs’ counsel class action bar

Limiting Access to Remedies: Select Criminal Law and Procedure Cases from the Supreme Court\u27s 2021-22 Term

Although the most memorable cases from the Supreme Court’s 2021-22 Term were on the civil side of its docket, the Court addressed significant cases on the criminal side involving the Confrontation Clause, capital punishment, double jeopardy, criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country, and important statutory interpretation principles, such as the mens rea presumption and the scope of the rule of lenity. Looking back, the Court’s decisions limiting individuals’ access to remedies for violations of their constitutional criminal procedure rights stand out. Shinn v. Ramirez and Shoop v. Twyford drastically limit the ability of persons incarcerated in state facilities to challenge the ineffectiveness of their trial counsel in federal habeas proceedings by prohibiting them from introducing new evidence to support their claims. Egbert v. Boule again narrowed individuals’ access to Bivens remedies against federal officials, and Vega v. Tekoh held that individuals may not sue state officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Miranda violations. Dicta in some cases suggest possible future restrictions on individuals’ constitutional criminal procedure remedies. For example, in Brown v. Davenport, Justice Gorsuch wrote a majority decision that reconstructed the history of federal habeas corpus review to suggest that the Great Writ should be limited to correcting jurisdictional defects. And the Tekoh majority dropped a footnote questioning the legitimacy of the Miranda decision itself. This was Justice Breyer’s last Term on the Court, and he spent it, for the most part, writing and joining dissents. He authored powerful dissenting opinions in both the Boston Marathon bombing case and the Second Amendment case on the right to bear arms in public

Lectures on Communications Media Legal and Policy Problems

Published under the auspices of the University of Michigan Law School (which, however, assumes no responsibility for the views expressed) with the aid of funds derived from gifts to the University of Michigan by William W. Cookhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/summer_institute/1005/thumbnail.jp

MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS - QUASI-CONTRACTUAL LIABILITY - DISTINCTION BETWEEN QUASI-CONTRACT AND RATIFICATION

Plaintiff sued to recover for services rendered as foreman on a city Works Project, the services having been rendered at the request of the mayor and with full knowledge on the part of the city council. Because of the foregoing fact the plaintiff claimed the contract had been ratified even though no formal corporate action had been taken authorizing the contract. Defendant\u27s demurrer was overruled in the circuit court. On appeal, held, although plaintiff could not recover in an action based on the alleged contract because no formal contract was ever entered into, and because plaintiff\u27s compensation had not been fixed by ordinance as required by statute, nevertheless he could recover on the basis of unjust enrichment for the amount of benefits received by the city. One justice dissented. Shulse v. City of Mayville, 223 Wis. 624, 271 N. W. 643 (1937)

INJUNCTIONS - COURTS - LABOR LAW - POWER OF A STATE COURT TO ENJOIN NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD OFFICIALS

The Circuit Court of Washtenaw County, Michigan, recently issued an injunction enjoining the regional officials of the National Labor Relations Board from holding a scheduled hearing in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The injunction was issued on the theory that if any unfair labor practices were being practiced by the Ann Arbor Press (a local job printer charged with violating the act) they did not affect interstate commerce and hence were not within the jurisdiction of the board. The injunction was at least temporarily effective. The hearing was not held in Ann Arbor. The regional office of the board in Detroit withdrew its complaint, but a new complaint was at once issued by the board, itself, at Washington, D. C. The hearing was accordingly held in Washington commencing May 2, 1938, presumably on the theory that the Michigan injunction had no extraterritorial effect. The regional officials of the board then moved in the Michigan court that the injunction be dissolved on the ground that the question was moot and that the state court had no jurisdiction to issue the injunction in the first place

TAXATION - INCOME TAX - WHETHER PURCHASE AND RETIREMENT BY CORPORATION OF OWN BONDS AT LESS THAN AMOUNT OF ISSUE CONSTITUTES A TAXABLE GAIN WHERE CORPORATION IS INSOLVENT

Petitioner, a railway corporation, in 1906 leased all its property to an operating company for a term of fifty years. At the same time petitioner issued $434,000 in first mortgage bonds which were used to refund a prior issue of$350,000 and to provide for certain improvements on the road. Interest on the bonds was to be met by lessee\u27s payment of the greater part of the rental directly to the trustee of the mortgage bonds, but no provision for a sinking fund was made. In October, 1932, petitioner purchased $19,000 par value of aforesaid mortgage bonds for$4,750, and has since held them in order to collect the interest as it falls due. Because of changed conditions the property leased by petitioner has become practically valueless. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue taxed the difference between issuing price and repurchase price as income for the year 1932. The Board of Tax Appeals supported the Commissioner. Held, the board\u27s decision should be reversed. Transylvania Railroad v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, (C. C. A. 4th, 1938) 99 F. (2d) 69

GARNISHMENT - FULL FAITH AND CREDIT - NATURE OF PRINCIPAL JUDGMENT

Plaintiff, appellee, sued an Illinois insurance company for legal services, and on the same day sued out a writ of garnishment against a Michigan debtor of the insurance company. Two days later the insurance company was dissolved in Illinois under the provisions of the Illinois Insurance Code, and an Illinois liquidator was vested with title to all of the insurance company\u27s property, wherever located. The liquidator intervened in this case, claiming prior title to the garnishment debt, by virtue of the Illinois statute and judicial proceedings. Held, the commencement of the garnishment suit gave plaintiff a lien on the garnishment debt, which was not divested by the liquidation proceedings in Illinois, and being prior in time, is superior to the liquidator\u27s statutory title to the debt as an asset of the dissolved company. Smith v. Builders & Manufacturers Casualty Co., 288 Mich. 146,284 N. W. 678 (1939)